Tag Archives: The Road Not Taken

Sonnets

Two roads diverged, and I missed it

Two roads diverged (as they so often do)
Not in a yellow wood, nor anywhere
Where I could look down each, and muse, and stare,
Compare the leaves and how the grasses grew.
Indeed, there was no choosing when they split—
I didn’t really see the fork at all.
It’s only looking back that I recall
There was a better way, back there a bit.
I could be telling this, in ages hence,
And sigh for roads not taken, chances lost.
But pausing to regret has its own cost
In present choices missed at my expense.
What I intended once, I cannot be,
But I am all that’s possible for me.

Originally posted on Making Light

Doggerel & Pastiches

The argument less fraught

In the spirit of one of the greatest xkcd cartoons of all, as given life by Patrick Nielsen Hayden:

Two threads diverged in a blog comment,
And sorry I could not argue both
And be one advocate, on I went
Researching one, and all that it meant
Unto the limits of its growth;

Then fought the other, just as keen
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it had less buzzword-sheen;
Though as for that, ’twas just as mean,
With obfuscation much the same.

And both held promise of delight
With comments not yet answered back.
Oh, I marked the first for another night!
Yet knowing how fight leads on to fight
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be blogging this with a sigh
Someday ages and ages hence:
Two threads diverged in a blog, and I,
I took the one less comment-shy
And that has made all the difference.